The Rites of Spring
by Loki's Symphony
Summary: Averell has lived her whole life in isolation. The War of the Ring has passed her by. Now, in the Fourth Age, a woman out of time must learn to find her place in a world she doesn't understand - and which doesn't understand her.
1. Prologue

**I'm not sure how often I will update this one - as a concept it's very much a work-in-progress and it's also my first ever OC-led fic. With good feedback, I'll continue. - Philip**

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><p><span>The Rites of Spring<span>

**Prologue**

Mother would watch the trees.

The southern edge of the forest lay barely a mile from the hole in the ground they called home. Mother had warned her never to set foot beyond the treeline, and from the tip of the hill above them Averell could see why – every so often the sound of groaning wood and rumbling earth would echo across the vale, and the sunlight shimmering off the canopy would play tricks; as though one of the trees had uprooted itself and was taking a stroll.

But it wasn't from on high that mother would watch; she would sit at the entrance of the cave, for hours at a time, eyes fixed on the horizon and the solid wall of leaf and bark which barred it off.

"I'm waiting," she would invariably say when Averell asked. "I'm waiting for your father."

"Where is my father?" She had begun to ask at a certain age.

"He's coming," was her unchanging response. After some time, Averell stopped asking.

Life was hard and devoid of luxuries. With just her and mother, wood had to be gathered and chopped between them, food hunted or foraged, and clothes sewn from what little quarry would wander through their isolated part of the world. Very occasionally, Men would appear on the horizon, and mother would travel alone to trade. Averell would wake long after sundown to hear Mother stumbling down the entrance to their home, carrying all she could bear in her arms – material, food and metalwork – before collapsing.

"Can I go and meet the Men, Mother?" Averell would ask. Mother's silence would fill the room every time.

"You'll have to," she had muttered once. Averell had pretended not to hear her.

Averell was twelve when she met the Men. Armed with her hunting-bow, Averell's heart pounded as she stepped further and further from the cave in which she had lived her entire life, further than she had ever been before. The Men were waiting for them in a clearing; huge, hairy, and stinking. Their clothes of fur and pelt matched Averell's own, but their faces were smeared with dirt of red and black.

Mother had offered hides and bones, leather and sinew, in exchange for steel. The Men laughed. "You know what we want," they said. Mother bowed her head and stepped aside.

The Men grabbed Averell. Her cries went unheeded but for a fist to the midriff, while Mother hid her face. All throughout, despite Averell's screams, she refused to even watch.

"This is what we must do to survive," Mother had told her the next day as she lay in agony on the bare stone floor. "This world is cruel."

It was some weeks before Averell was returned to full strength. Upon first rousing from her sick-bed, her eye was caught by the haul her suffering had won them; hunting knives, a quiver of arrows, and a pair of short swords in need of sharpening. Weeks she spent with a whetstone, buffing the beaten metal to a mirror shine and a keen edge. With a weapon in each hand, she felt somehow more complete; as though she had found a part of her body she had not known was missing.

Tree trunks and standing stones became her sparring partners. Upon each one she projected the face of those Men, sneering and pitiless, and hacked and slashed until splinters littered the ground, her fingers bled from burst blisters and the edge of her sword was dulled into bluntness.

"You move like him," Mother had once said upon catching Averell practising strokes and swings. Before she could respond, Mother was once again looking to the trees, not to be disturbed until nightfall.

Years passed. Her arms only became faster, her skin harder, her muscles stronger. But the lines in Mother's face became deeper, and she could no longer bear a full day's hunting as once she had, carrying a sleeping Averell on her back; now, some days, the responsibility was Averell's alone to fetch dinner.

It was returning from a hunt that Averell had found Mother splayed on the floor, blood pooling from her mouth. The old woman lingered for some days, in and out of consciousness. On the last day, she asked that Averell take her outside to watch the trees. The sun journeyed across the sky without a break in the treeline. "He never came," she whispered, before collapsing into a coughing fit so severe Averell carried her back inside to their bed. "I go, child," she croaked, "to the halls of my ancestors. May they finally forgive me." Mother closed her eyes, and her breast fell still.

As she descended the hill where she had buried her mother, the sound of mewling had caught Averell's ear. Swords drawn, she stepped cautiously through the brush to find an abandoned Warg-cub, eyes barely opened. Averell, feeling all too keenly its loss and distress, gathered the docile cub in her arms and carried him back to her cave.

The first few months were the hardest. Using Mother's herb-lore she was able to feed the suckling creature from her own teat, but weaning it onto meat meant she would often go hungry. Were it not for Eadwulf's growing hunting instinct, she would have easily starved to death during those difficult years.

Once she reached her twenty-first year, the words of her Mother came back to her. _I'm waiting_. _I'm waiting for your father. _Longer and longer Averell would find herself staring out of the mouth of the cave to the edge of the forest, wondering what possessed her mother to think her father could be found in such a treacherous place. And yet, she had to believe she was right – or else her mother had spent her life in vain hope, and died in despair. For the first time in many, many years, Averell began to ask questions – and all too late.

There was a world out there, a world Averell had never known. Those Men – long since dead and buried, rent apart by Eadwulf's mighty jaws – had come from somewhere. Mother was gone; whatever she was running from could not harm them now.

One day, she saddled Eadwulf and loaded him with enough supplies for a very long journey. They set off to the south, and without a backward glance the edge of the forest disappeared beneath the horizon. Their home beneath the hill would succumb to the elements, and within years no trace they had ever been there remained.


	2. Chapter 1

**EDIT: Managed to misspell my own protagonist's name. This is why you don't write past midnight, kids. - Philip.**

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><p>"I think you're telling tall tales again," the young soldier mumbled through a mouthful of apple.<p>

"No lie! Eagles, the size of a barn! Half a dozen of them!"

"Come on, Grandad," Aelfling addressed the older man. "Everyone knows the Eagles haven't stirred from their Eyries since the King returned to Gondor."

"Only 'cause they weren't looking," the old man replied stubbornly, stuffing a bread roll into his mouth.

The patrol – a small guard of a dozen horsemen – had stopped in the shelter of a natural quarry to water their horses and eat. Eothed, the most senior amongst them, was regaling them with yet more of his war stories. As soon as the words _When I served under King Theoden _had left his lips, half of the troop had found essential jobs that needed doing elsewhere.

"'Tis true," Eothed said at length, stirring the pot as it bubbled over the fire. "That was the day Frodo Baggins left Middle-Earth. The Eagles had come to bid farewell to the greatest Hobbit there ever was. Many will tell you King Eomer shed tears that day," he muttered, testing the broth for flavour and licking his lips as it dribbled down his long, bushy beard.

"He's making it all up," came a voice from behind a crag. "He only tells you because his wife knows he likes to wind her up."

"And you'd know all about making up stories, wouldn't you, Wulfstan?" Eothed called out as a lean, grizzled veteran emerge from behind the rocks adjusting his belt. "How many orcs is it you say you killed at Pellenor? Two, three hundred?"

"Something like that," Wulfstan replied, filling a bowl with broth. "I was busy, I lost count."

Voices rose in laughter and protest around the fire, casting shadows like a puppet-show against the sheer cliff-face. Night was drawing in, and the patrol would have to move on before sunset to be back at Edoras by dawn.

A nervous whinny passed around the horses, raising the hackles on the older men. Aelfling rushed to his horse's side.

"Easy, boy," he cooed, grabbing the reins and focusing the animal's attention on himself. "What's out there?"

"No good," Wulfstan muttered darkly, drawing his sword. "Only one smell scares a steed of the Rohirrim," he announced. "WARG!"

The younger soldiers leapt to arms, drawing swords and taking to the saddle. "Form a line, backs to the fire!" Eothed ordered. "We know you're there, Orc!" he barked into the darkness. "Slink back to your filth-hole now and I'll not hang your head from my saddle!"

A voice floated across the air, too weak and distant to be understood. "Was that Orcish?" one of the young men asked.

"We said, leave these lands and your miserable life will be spared!" Wulstan shouted as their horses began to stamp and snort.

_I'm not an Orc!_

Surprised silence fell over the horsemen, who shared confused looks.

"What?!" Eothed roared.

"I said, I'm not an Orc!" A few swords lowered, hesitating. The voice was human enough.

"Prove it!" One of the novice horsemen called out, his voice tremulous with stress. The veterans gave him dark looks from the corners of their eyes.

The air cracked like a whip and an arrow slammed into the ground before Wulfstan, sending a couple of the inexperienced horsemen flinching in surprise. Ten bows were strung and aimed within the blink of an eye.

"Hold!" Wulfstan cried, extending his fist. Slowly, he slid from his saddle and stooped to pull the arrow from the ground. He scowled as he inspected the head. "Wildling," he spat.

"These are Rohan lands," Eothed called out to their visitor. "Turn back the way you came."

"I'm looking for shelter," the voice replied, "I've goods to trade."

"Well you won't find it here!" Wulfstan shouted. "Turn around and sleep in a ditch for all I care, Wildling!"

"I'm not a Wildling!" the voice shot back. "My mother was Hild of Edoras, daughter of Aelfwine!"

"Hild of Edoras?" Aelfling muttered to himself.

"And what of your father, hm?" Wulfstan replied. "Some Wildling savage who captured her and forced her into marriage, I suppose?"

"What know you of Hild of Edoras?" Aelfling shouted out, spurring his horse onward beyond the line.

"Aelfling! Gods above, get back!" Eothed growled at him.

"She raised me best she could," the voice replied after some time. "She passed five years back."

Aelfling hung his head, and turned his horse to face his commanders. "It's a woman," he told them, "of one-and-twenty years. We have to let her through."

"How do you know-" Eothed spluttered, before realisation washed over him like a wave. He stared into the forbidding darkness, imagining the untold horrors it might bear. "You swear," he whispered, "on your honour?"

"On my life," Aelfling hissed. Eothed nodded grimly.

"Step forward! Into the light, where we can see you! Hands above your head, sword sheathed!"

Heavy footsteps brought the hairs on the horsemen's necks standing up, and ragged growls seemed to pierce their very hearts. Closer and closer they came, until the deep bass of the beast's breathing echoed within their chests. The younger men gasped when the Warg's face broke into the light – stunted and ugly, with teeth so gruesome they seemed to pierce the flesh of its own muzzle. It stood almost as high as a horse and as wide as two or even three stood abreast, and upon him sat – just as Aelfling had predicted – a young woman of one-and-twenty years.

She was tall – six feet, at least – with a long queue of blonde hair which seemed to have been fashioned into an attempt at a traditional Rohirric braid, albeit knotted and matted with years of dirt and grime. Every inch of her body was swaddled in thick furs but for her hands and face, which, though young, bore eyes of iridescent blue that stared straight through whatever they rested upon, like the gaze of a battle-hardened warrior.

"Who…" Wulfstan snarled, "who _are_ you?"

"I am Avarell," she called out, hands above her head, "daughter of Hild of Edoras. I've come home."


	3. Chapter 2

**Feedback has been good, so it looks like Averell's adventures are continuing - for the moment! - Philip**

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><p>The journey back to Edoras was punishing. The horses wouldn't come within ten feet of Averell's steed, making escorting her the hundred miles back to the city a long and treacherous march. They rode through the night, their path lit by the moon and stars, and still had not reached Edoras by sunrise. The riders had begun to tire, and some of the younger men were begging for respite by the time the walls of the city appeared on the horizon.<p>

"What do we tell them?" Wulfstan muttered to Eothed as they drove their horses gently up the slope towards the gates, with Averell and her Warg boxed inside an oblong of horsemen behind them.

"Leave the talking to me," the old man replied gruffly, geeing his horse and speeding on ahead.

Averell watched as the old man shouted up to the guardsmen in the towers above the gate, pointing back towards her. After a brief, yet heated, exchange, the gates began to creak open. Her hand ached to stretch to the sword at her hip; once those gates closed again, she might never leave. She and Eadwulf crossed the threshold of the city in silence and the gates slammed shut.

The horsemen fanned out and formed a wall of spears in front of the pair, pinning them down. Eothed cantered forward and addressed them.

"Averell, daughter of Hild of Edoras," he boomed in an officious tone, "by the laws of the land of Rohan, I am hereby placing you under arrest." Averell's blue eyes hardened, her knuckles whitening. "You will be taken to the dungeons of Meduseld, and there held until Eomer King deigns to hear you."

"What?" Averell growled through clenched teeth, her stomach turning somersaults within her.

"Is this really necessary, Sir?" Aelfling asked Wulfstan under his breath. "She _is-_"

"I know who you _think_ she is," Wulfstan cut him short. "But you don't know who she _really _is. None of us do. What if she's an assassin, hm? Here to kill the King?" Aelfling frowned, biting his tongue.

"Relinquish your weapons and we will escort you to your cell," Eothed continued. "Do not resist and you will not be harmed."

_Do not resist and you will not be harmed? _Averell's lip curled in disgust. "I've heard that before." She drew her swords and spurred Eadwulf into action, the great Warg rising to his hindlegs and roaring. "Never again!" she cried.

Within a second thirty bows were primed and ready to loose a volley of enough arrows to kill them both.

"Averell, please!" Aelfling interjected, trotting his horse forward as Averell scanned the towers and walls, counting archers. She wouldn't get very far at all before they cut her own. "There's no need for this. You're a stranger to our lands – this is just our way. You have my word, you will not be harmed."

Averell's chest heaved with indignation and their eyes locked. "I will not be bound," she said after an agonising silence. "I will go, but you will not lay a hand on me. None of you."

"Of course," Eothed replied, motioning for the archers to stand down. "There's no reason to be impolite here."

Averell frowned as she sheathed her sword and dismounted Eadwulf. Aelfling advanced his horse on her, arm outstretched to collect her weapons. "I had better get them back," she grumbled.

"What shall we do with the Warg?" Wulfstan asked Eothed. "We can't keep him with the horses, he'll terrify them."

"No, he won't," Averell interjected, stroking Eadwulf's scarred muzzle. "The men, he'll terrify. The horses," she said, "he'll eat."

Eothed coughed uncomfortably. "Well, what would you suggest?"

Averell shrugged. "How big are your cells?"

The old horseman let out a bark of laughter. "You can't seriously expect us to fit a Warg in the dungeons!"

"I fit him in a cave," Averell retorted. "It's that or let him roam free. He wouldn't hurt anyone…unless they upset him. Which they would."

Eothed swore and spat on the ground. "Alright, damn you," he growled. "Escort them both to the dungeon," he ordered his men.

The presence of a Warg being led tamely through their city piqued the interest of Edoras' residents, and before long on their short journey to the dungeon the news of their arrival had outpaced them. Children peered between the legs of their parents, shielding them away from the line of horsemen that flanked Averell and Eadwulf on either side, gasping and pointing. A single growl was enough to send them scattering back to their homes amid grim chuckles from the horsemen – and Averell herself.

"None of this lot would have been much good on the road to Helm's Deep, eh?" Wulfstan said to the soldier by his side. "A whole troop of Wargs, blood-crazy and hungry for Man-flesh, each ridden by a stinking, murderous Orc!"

"Oh, don't _you _start," Aelfling groaned.

Reaching the dungeon took no time at all, but getting Eadwulf in proved harder than they'd anticipated. "I thought you said he'd lived in a cave?" Aelfling asked impatiently as the Warg stamped and grizzled, refusing to descend to the cells.

"It's the smell," Averell explained, holding tight to the leash around his neck, her wiry arms keeping him in check. "It's spooking him."

Wulfstan laughed mirthlessly. "What could possibly spook a Warg, I wonder?"

"The smell of death," Averell replied, looking daggers at the old man.

"Let go," Eothed told her, digging through his saddle-bag.

"What?" Averell said incredulously.

"I said, let go!" Eothed barked as he tossed something down into the dungeon. Like a hound after a scent, Eadwulf leapt after it, bounding clumsily down the tunnel. "Black pudding," Eothed said, dismounting. "I was looking forward to that, too."

The cell, it turned out, was no less spacious than Averell's cave had been. Eadwulf had taken little coaxing inside, mollified as he was with Eothed's sacrificed treat, and had immediately curled up in a corner to rest. "You won't be held long, I promise," Aelfling told her as he locked the cell door. "Eomer will want to speak with you as soon as he's able, I'm sure."

"Why would he be so interested in me?" Averell asked, studying the young soldier's face. He – indeed, the rest of the Rohirrim – were like no other Men she had seen before; fair of face and noble of bearing, they seemed a world away from the grim, menacing Wildlings that had so terrorised her and Mother. And yet, there was something unmistakably familiar about him – like she had known him in another life. He smiled, hesitating.

"It's not often we get someone from beyond our borders who isn't a Wildling," he said nervously. Silence passed between them for a beat. "Well, if you need anything-"

"Why did you ask after Mother?" Averell asked, moving to the bars. "That was you, wasn't it? I remember your voice."

The young man's mouth opened and closed dumbly, eyes darting to the door. "It really would be better to wait until Eomer King sends for you," he said, backing away. "It won't be long, I promise." He turned awkwardly on his heels and headed back up, leaving Averell and Eadwulf alone.

She sighed and turned to her Warg, his paws twitching as he dreamed peacefully. She smiled despite herself, and lay down on the straw beside him, nuzzling into his warm, furry belly. The exhaustion of her day-long ride began to weigh upon her all at once, and within minutes she was asleep, destined to dream of blonde hair.


	4. Chapter 3

_Strong arms held her tight. She was small and weak, and the body she was clutched to was warm and strong._

_**Shush, baby of mine**, she said. **All be over soon**. _

_The face that loomed over her was lit by starlight, gashed by the silver streaks of tears. She opened her mouth, but no words came out – only meaningless burbles, lost in the whip of winds that surrounded them both._

_The strong arms extended and Averell looked down. An endless chasm yawned before her, fog creeping up the sheer cliff-face. Fear overwhelmed her, and cries wracked her body; she spasmed wildly, lashing out, trying to escape, but the slender fingers that held her in place were too strong._

_**Gods! **The sobbing face cried out. **Don't make me do this, please!**_

_Averell could only cry helplessly, twisting her naked body against the grip. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating her captor for a brief second. She saw mud-streaked clothes, torn and ragged, and blonde hair flying like a standard in the wind._

_She hung above the drop for what seemed an age, the fingers loosening gradually. Averell fought harder, kicking her legs ineffectually at the wrists before them. In a swift motion, she was pulled in from the drop and clutched back to a heaving breast, screaming against the cloth._

_**So sorry**, she heard between the sobs and thunder,** so sorry, my beautiful child…my starlight child…**_

The clink of metal on metal woke her from her dream, wrenching her painfully back to reality. She shielded her eyes as she opened them into a sunbeam that bathed her cell from the high, barred windows opposite.

"Come along, Wildling," said a familiar unfriendly voice, silhouetted in the sunrise. "The King wants to see you." Averell pulled herself to her feet, brushing straw from her pelts and plucking it from her hair, rubbing her eyes until Wulfstan's lean, cruel face appeared before her. "No accounting for taste, apparently," he growled, unlocking the door to her cell.

The muscles in Averell's arms burned to reach out and throttle him as soon as she had the space; the Man's cut-throat smile bared yellowing teeth, exposed in mockery. It took every ounce of what little self-control she had to keep herself in check and not fly from her cell.

"Then take me," she replied, "horseman."

She felt Wulfstan's eyes resting on her rear all the way up the tunnel to the surface and the path to Meduseld. Disgust crept over her skin like oil, only exacerbated by the wandering eyes of the soldiers at the doors to the Royal keep. As soon as the doors opened she strode inside ahead of her guard detail, like a walker escaping a storm, unconsciously raising a hand to her shoulder as if to brush off the rain.

The soldiers assigned to her clanked in their golden armour as they quick-stepped to catch up with her, while others within the hall reached for their swords at the sight of a Wildling entering unaccompanied. As she walked to the throne, Averell couldn't help but glance around; lofty cross-beams suspended a roof higher than anything she could have imagined in her life of cave-dwelling, letting in fine sunbeams that bathed the entire room in gold, glinting off of the brass and bronze that adorned every wall and sat at every table. Averell had heard tales of Dwarven mines where gold flowed in rivers and precious metals poured from the walls; she had heard nothing of the riches of Men, but they appeared to be giving Mother's stories of the Dwarves a run for their money.

As she reached the dais, two soldiers stepped down to indicate that she'd come close enough. Seated upon it, a middle-aged man spoke confidentially with an elderly attendant, their voices too low to be heard. After some minutes in impatient silence, he dismissed his adjutant and gave his full attention to Averell.

"You're the girl with the Warg, then," he addressed her, slouched comfortably in his seat. "What brings you to Edoras?"

Averell stood in silence, unsure how to answer. "When Eomer King addresses you, you will answer!" Wulfstan barked from behind her. The King frowned over Averell's shoulder, and she suppressed a smirk as she felt Wulfstan's pride palpably shrink.

"My mother was Hild of Edoras," she explained, "she departed us some five summers hence. I wished to learn of how she came to live in the Wild Hills, and…and to learn of the fate of my father," she said, feeling eyes beginning to burn into her back, as though the entire room had taken much more of an interest in her story all of a sudden. "Mother spent her life waiting for his return, but he never came. Does he live yet in Edoras?"

Eomer sighed and rose from his seat, descending the dais to speak to her face-to-face. He was tall, with blonde hair flecked through with long streaks of grey to give the impression of flaxen steel, and a beard to match, cropped close to his face. The first signs of a paunch strained at his fine red tunic, but the unmistakable bulges in the chest and arms belied a man who was still very much in fighting trim. "There's much of that time that's been misplaced or misremembered," he replied. "The War didn't give us much time for record-keeping. People came and went to Edoras in their hundreds in those days; it's only thanks to bonds of blood that we can be sure your lineage can be found here at all." Averell blinked in surprise as Eomer gestured to his left, beckoning someone forward. From behind a pillar, Aelfling emerged sheepishly into the light. "Aelfling here…well, I'll let him explain it," he said, retreating back to his throne.

"Thank you, Highness," he said before turning to Averell. "Averell, I…well, we've not been formally introduced." He stood straight with his feet together and bent forward, extending his hand in supplication. "Averell-born-of-Hild, I am Aelfling, son of Gram. Your mother was sister to my own." Averell's back stiffened in surprise as the young man looked up with a warm smile. "She left us some twenty years ago, when I was just a small boy. We looked for her, but in vain. But now…" he swallowed hard, steadying his rising emotion. "You're welcome in the home of my kin," he announced, bowing his head once more. "Will you fulfil our bond of blood?"

Silence once again fell over Meduseld as Averell stood dumbstruck, unsure what to do next. She glanced behind her to find that soldiers, courtiers and other hangers-on had gravitated to the throne room to goggle at the goings-on. The world seemed to spin around her; family? Why had Mother never mentioned them? There was only ever her, and Father, and her parents, both long dead; what had she felt was necessary to protect Averell from?

"If you accept," Wulfstan whispered behind her, his breath thick and oily on her ear, "take his hand."

Averell immediately grasped Aelfling's proffered hand and stepped forward, locking the two together in a tight embrace. The room burst into rapturous applause and calls of triumph, and Eomer King seemed to be party to it. Aelfling laughed merrily, patting Averell on the back, who stood dazed at the centre of such adulation. One by one people streamed forward to attempt to congratulate her on her new-found kinship, and the sheer mass of bodies began to send her into a panic. Her head turned wildly for a sword, a rock, anything to-

"I think my cousin would like to meet the rest of her family, "Aelfling called out, clutching her shoulder tightly, surreptitiously preventing her from reaching out for a cheese-knife left idly by the table beside her. "Let's give her her privacy and not crowd her, hm? Wouldn't you say, your Highness?" He asked the King, inclining his head.

"Quite," Eomer replied, sitting in his throne. "Don't trouble the woman – let her see her kin," he ordered the crowd, gesturing for Aelfling to make for the back door.

"Thank you, Sir," he said, bowing low, before guiding Averell out through the King's study and down the stairs that led out onto Meduseld's rear, where two soldiers stood silent guard and did not react when the pair came bundling out of the tiny door.

"That could have been messy," Aelfling said, finally letting go of Averell's shoulder, who twisted away from his grip entirely.

"I warned you," she hissed, "not to lay a hand on me!"

"If I hadn't, you would have killed someone," he retorted, unamused. "I saw you going for that knife, what were you thinking?"

Averell seethed silently, looking askance. "That there were too many people around me for my liking."

"Well, get used to it," Aelfling said, descending the steps laid into the hillock upon which Meduseld sat, "there's fifteen of us at home, spread over four buildings. Mother will want to feed you up, you're all skin and bones – as long as you promise not to stab any of us."

Averell made after him, skipping down the steps two at a time. "What of Eadwulf? He can't stay in that cell, all alone!"

"We've an old stable-building we were going to pull down, but he's welcome to it," Aelfling replied as the pair of them turned onto a main path, turning heads as the golden-armoured soldier and pelt-clad Wildling walked side-by-side through Edoras.

"Why are you doing this for me?" Averell asked after some minutes spent in silence. "I've offered you nothing. What do you want from me?"

"Want? Nothing," Aelfling replied, surprised. "Why would you assume I want something?"

Averell swallowed hard. "People always want something," she muttered.

"Well, not now. Not for you. You're family," he explained, stopping to rest on a fence-post. "Family stick together." Averell looked past him to see a large clan ranging in age from toddlers to the elderly, sitting outside a ring of thatched huts around a fire.

"She's here!" a middle-aged woman called out, and a great cheer rose up around the group. Children ran out into the lane in fits of giggles, stopping yards short of her.

"Come," Aelfling said, laying a tender hand on her shoulder. "Come and meet your family."


	5. Chapter 4

Averell lay uncomfortably awake whilst her new-found family slept around her. The sheepskin on which she lay tickled her incessantly, only getting worse the more she fidgeted, and snores surrounded and irritated her like midges on a summer night. The presence of so many other people around her, breathing, twitching, coughing, set her on edge – after a lifetime of just the company of Mother and Eadwulf, the fact that so many people could exist together in such a small space made her skin crawl. Even the thought of the city itself made her uncomfortable; thinking about so many people forced so closely together, an island of seething humanity in a sea of unending golden plains.

Unable to bear the thought any longer, Averell rolled off her sheepskin and took to her feet, stepping lithely across bodies to reach the door and taking a deep, welcome breath of cool night air. The air smelled different in the city, too; manure and horse-sweat, fresh peat and woodsmoke. A world away from the smell of dried grass and dust, and perfume washing in on winds from the great forest. Averell slipped out of the hut and made her way to the stable where Eadwulf slept alone.

As she sat cross-legged on the straw beside her sleeping companion, the sound of his deep breaths transported her back to her cave; she heard his breathing echo off the bare rock to become a calming, enveloping wave of sound, coddling her like her mother's heartbeat in the womb. She closed her eyes and let it surround her, washing away the memories of earlier that night, and the deep sense of displacement she now felt.

Aelfling, to his credit, was sensitive to his cousin's distaste for crowds and had done his best to shoo the family away, letting them introduce themselves to her one at a time. Countless aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, and cousins once, twice and thrice removed had approached her at some point or another to proffer a hand and introduce themselves. Nearly all of the names had gone in one ear and out the other – when she was still trying to process the fact that her mother had family who had missed her for twenty years and had never told her about them, trying to recall their names and faces was always going to be a difficult task.

Things had gotten even worse at dinner. It was a simple meal, though Aelfling went to pains to indicate they'd tried to put together something special for her, even with their limited resources. A steaming hot stew was ladled into bowls and passed around, and Averell had spent much of her time questioning what she was eating.

"What are the round things?" She'd asked at one point, slightly too loudly.

"Don't you know what carrots are?" one of the younger children had replied.

"She doesn't know!" crowed another, clocking her look of confusion. The children had found this hilarious, despite their parents' chiding, and their laughter hurt her to the core. How ill-suited was she to this world, when the infants knew more of it than she?

"We very rarely ate vegetables," she'd explained to Aelfling later. "They take time. They need to be grown. Land around the cave was poor…the soil, very thin. We hunted most of the time," she muttered, spooning more of the stew into her mouth. The meat, though clearly of no great provenance, was richer and moister than any she and Mother had ever cooked.

"I can imagine," Aelfling had said, sympathetically. "Actually…no. No, I can't. I can't…begin to imagine how you both survived."

The stew turned sour in Averell's mouth and she swallowed sharply. "We just did," she replied.

Time and again family members would probe her for answers – where she and Mother had ended up, how they had fared as hunters, what game they had found. Averell's answers grew more and more evasive with each question, until eventually the message sunk in.

As the night wore on and talk turned away from her and back to family matters, Averell felt increasingly like an intruder – a fish out of water, thrown into a world she had no part of and couldn't participate in. Aelfling, however, was determined to see her integrate into the family; more than once he would surreptitiously explain the conversation to her, or steer it in directions she felt more comfortable with.

Though at first wary of his eagerness to help her, Averell found herself growing to appreciate Aelfling's company. Without his guiding hand, her first meeting with her family would have been just as likely to end with broken bones and a ham-fisted flight through the rear gate. She reached out to stroke Eadwulf's belly, when a noise behind her made her leap to her feet, reaching instinctively for the knife at her belt which was no longer there.

"Hey!" Aelfling called softly, holding his hands up. "It's only me." Averell's muscles gradually relaxed, the adrenaline flooding her system abating slowly. The ease with which she had turned on her own cousin gave her pause, and she silently retook her seat on the floor.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked quietly. Averell nodded. "I don't blame you. Uncle Arod's snoring could wake the dead," he chuckled. "There's something else, isn't there?" he asked, concerned. "You really don't like being that close to people, do you?"

"Too many," Averell muttered. "Too many people." Aelfling nodded sombrely.

"I understand," he said. "Completely. I mean…just you and Hild, alone all that time…" he trailed off and sat on the straw next to her, never taking his eye off the sleeping Warg just feet away from them. "You didn't ask a single question about your mother," he said. "Actually, you barely spoke at all, except when you were answering questions. Don't you want to know?"

Averell's mouth gaped open, dumbly. Of course she wanted to know – that was the entire reason she had come so far. But then, why hadn't she asked? These people had known her mother since the day she was born, and probably knew of her father, too; what was stopping her?

"I just…" she began, before giving up. "I couldn't. I can't." Silence blew in with a whistling wind that chilled them both.

"I know a little," Aelfling whispered. "If you like, I could tell you. Would you like me to?"

Averell turned to face her cousin. "Yes," she said, "yes, please ."

Aelfling smiled and re-settled himself on the straw. "Well, when I was a child, your mother was married to a man from this city, called Bram," he began. "I was very, very young at the time, so I can't remember anything perfectly, but I do recall the day your mother and father left. They'd had a…disagreement, of some kind. Your father went one way, your mother another. I'm not sure what possessed her to strike out into the wilds on her own, but…well, I suppose only Hild knew that for sure. Bram went to Helm's Deep and…well, he never came back," he said apologetically. "If you want to know more, I suggest you ask my mother, or my father – he knew Bram well. I can only tell you what I remember – it's something not often spoken of in the family. We thought Hild was lost to us, and the pain it caused my mother was simply too great. When I heard you state your name, out on the wilds, I…well, I honestly thought I was dreaming," he laughed, silencing himself as Eadwulf grunted.

"Why," Averell croaked, her throat dry with emotion, "why would she just leave? And why would my father just…"

Aelfling reached out and stroked Averell's shoulder tenderly, his heart aching with pain to see how she flinched from even his concerned touch. "Like I said, I just don't know," he said sadly. "I do hope mother will finally be able to talk about Aunt Hild, though…now that you're back with us."

For the first time since they had met, Averell really _looked _at her cousin. Though he didn't share her long nose and sharp cheekbones, and his eyes were a far duller shade of blue than hers, her mother's mouth leapt out at her, and the way he smiled reminded her of the way mother used to. _Back when she still smiled, at least, _she thought to herself.

"Will you be there with me," she asked, "tomorrow, if I ask her?"

"Of course," he replied seriously. "I'll give you whatever help you need. To be totally honest with you…easing my mother's heart motivates me just as much in bringing you back into our family as the thing itself. She never forgave herself for allowing Aunt Hild to go…"

Silence once again fell over them, heavy and melancholic. "I should let you get some sleep," he announced, quietly rising as Eadwulf turned onto his back with a great snore. "I assume you'll be staying out here?"

"With Eadwulf," Averell confirmed. "I prefer it this way."

"No problem," Aelfling replied, yawning. "I'll see you in the morning."

Averell kept watch on her cousin's back as he turned and walked back into the hut, keeping sight of him until he disappeared. Just as she had the night before, she would spend the night curled up against her only true and trusted friend.

_For now, at least_, she said to herself, thinking of Aelfling's smile, and passing into sleep with a smile of her own.


	6. Chapter 5

Averell awoke to the sound of shuffling feet and clanking metal. Blinking into the sun, she saw the shapes of armoured men pass, wraith-like, across her half-closed eyes. Guttural shouts and orders filled the air along with kicked-up clouds of dust, further obscuring the chaos that surrounded Eadwulf and herself.

"Move out! Move out!" "To the muster stations!" "Every man with armour and a horse is to report!"

Taking to her feet as Eadwulf growled cantankerously, Averell made her way to the front door of the longhouse where dinner had been served the night before. The men of the family shuttled to and fro through the doors, bearing weapons and bridle-gear.

"Aelfling?" She called out. "Aelfling, are you here?"

"Aelfling went on ahead, child," a man she recognised as her great-uncle replied, hefting a bearded axe over his shoulder. "They called the Riders of the Mark first. Now it's anyone who's left," he groaned as he continued on his way to the small mass of horsemen at their gate.

"Anyone who's left…what?" Averell asked, quickly becoming engulfed by a stream of people passing through the doors. "Went on ahead where?"

"East Emnet," came another man's voice from beyond the door. Fighting her way past the tide, Averell entered the house to find Aelfling's father hurriedly repairing a worn, old saddle. "All the Rohirrim in Edoras have been mustered. Wildlings," he muttered darkly, putting his eyes back to his work.

"Wildlings? East Emnet? I don't understand," Averell said, beginning to be unnerved by the activity surrounding her.

"Word is they attacked one of our villages in full force yesterday," another random male relative piped up, squeezing himself into a long-unworn cuirasse. "Rohirrim were sent out before dawn, but a second fire began to rise not long after they'd left. Eomer's ordered Edoras' garrison emptied."

Averell shook her head worriedly as the chaos around her only seemed to grow. "Aelfling," she mumbled, "I want Aelfling!"

"He'll not be back for some days, love," Aelfling's mother Betha took her aside from the crush, ensconcing them both in a cubby-hole. "Being a Rider of the Mark's a great honour, but…" she sighed. "Your life's not your own. Aelfling's pledged himself to his King, and the King wants my son fighting Wildlings," she said, sucking in a sharp breath.

"I want to go with them, then," Averell said, her eyes straining to where she knew Eadwulf would be chained outside, no doubt distressed by the number of horses and men fussing all around him. Betha laughed mirthlessly.

"Joining the family is one thing," she said, "but joining the Rohirrim is another. I don't think Edoras' kindness will stretch that far just yet." Averell stared at her feet and pouted. "You look so like her, you know," Betha said, running a hand through Averell's matted dreadlocks. "You have his eyes, though," she mumbled, almost sadly.

"What did you know of my father?" Averell asked, her skin feeling uncomfortably prickly with the proximity of her aunt's hand. Almost immediately, Betha's fingers retracted, as if on instinct.

"Your father was…" Betha said. "Well, Bram was…he…" She gave up, sighing. "It's difficult, sweetheart. I understand that all you've ever wanted was answers, but it's…hard for me to talk about. Do you understand?"

Averell's mind cast back to her mother's last days, and how she cradled the dying woman in her arms. "Yes, I understand," she said softly.

"Another time, when Aelfling's not halfway across the country, fighting for his life…another time, I promise I'll tell you all you want to know," she said, gripping Averell's arms tightly. Averell unconsciously twisted out of her aunt's grasp, blushing deeply as she registered it. "You don't like being touched, do you?" Betha asked with a nervous smile.

"Not much," Averell replied, grateful to leave the cubby-hole as Betha stepped backward. "If it takes Aelfling being back to get some answers, then I'll get him back. How do I join the Rohirrim?"

Betha's jaw flapped open wordlessly before erupting into a shocked laugh. "Well, you don't just ride up alongside them and ask if you can join them!" Averell flinched as if physically wounded, much to her aunt's shame. "I'm sorry, pet," she continued with a conciliatory tone, "but you need to be a man, freeborn of Rohan, and you're not even the first. The only other way would be…no," she sighed. "It'd never happen."

"How?" Averell asked, gripping Betha's hands with strong, callused fingers. "Tell me!"

"The only other way," Betha continued, somewhat intimidated, "would be if the King ordered it so – his word is as good as law."

"Then I'll see the King," Averell said simply. "If he's sending out all his riders, he must be desperate."

Betha tried to protest, but nothing came out. There was no harm in her trying – even in the million-to-one chance that Eomer agreed, the spark that came to her eyes when she spoke of riding to the aid of her cousin gave Betha hope that Averell truly was one of the family – ready to lay her sword down for her kin.

"Alright," she said. "We'll try. But the King's a terribly busy man – he may not have time to speak with you."

"He'll make time for me," Averell replied, turning on her heels and striding outside, where a line of horsemen shuffled past on their way out of the city.

"Someone, take me to the King!" She shouted above the noise of hooves and whinnies. "I want to speak with him!"

Laughs rose up from the group as they passed. "Get to the front and you can catch him, if you run!" someone shouted, to yet more laughter. Averell shrugged.

"Alright then."

With a running jump Averell leapt up onto the nearest horseman and stepped across his beast and the horse beside him like stepping-stones as the soldiers cried out in irritation, throwing herself off the horse's back and onto the roof of the hut beside them. With her feet as light and nimble as a fox's, she dashed across thatched roofs, jumping from building to building as she raced to reach the head of the line. Edoras sprawled open beneath her, around her, just another hunting-ground as she searched for her quarry. Shouts and calls sprung up around her as she passed overhead; some cheers, some jeers, some threats. As the gates of Edoras came in sight she slid down the roof of the last house like a skater on a frozen pond and made a dead sprint for the king's horse – a mighty white steed draped in green and gold, with the King's plumed helmet unmistakable on top.

"Stop!" she cried out. "Stop, please!" The line snickered and kept moving, ignoring her calls. "Eomer King, please, I need to speak with you!"

Averell saw the King turn his head to his aide, who stopped the line with a single wave of his hand. She skidded on the dusty ground as she came to a halt beside the King's horse. Eomer sighed gruffly. "You have twenty seconds."

"Let me come with you," she panted. "Eadwulf can run longer and faster than any horse."

"And none of my horses will come within ten feet of your beast," Eomer replied, turning in his saddle to face Averell. "How am I to lead an effective cavalry force when half of them won't sit still?"

"We'll scout ahead," Averell suggested as Eomer tutted and shook his head. "We'll be nowhere near you."

"I'm sorry," Eomer replied, "but the answer is no. You have found your family; I suggest you get to know them while we're gone."

"My family left before dawn!" Averell shouted. Horsemen reached for bows and swords as the young woman's aggression to their King became more and more apparent. "My family rode into an ambush! Will you not let me ride to his aid? Will you let him be forever lost?"

"What would you know," Eomer spat, turning his horse on a pin and advancing on Averell, "of family? Of loss?" His handsome face seemed suddenly much older, twisted with rage. "You speak to me, who fought alongside Theoden on Pellenor Fields, who saw his kinsmen slaughtered, of the loss of a family you didn't know existed until yesterday? Do not make me regret ever giving you shelter in my halls, Wildling!"

Averell's hands screamed to fly to her waist and pull out her knives, to remove the tongue that had so slandered her, but the sheer mass of brooding horsemen that surrounded her, hands gripped firmly around bows and spears, froze her into place.

"My patience with you wears thin," Eomer sighed angrily, turning his horse around and trotting out of the gates, taking the whole line with him. "Be content with the family you have left!" he called back, barely audible over the sound of hooves.

One by one the horsemen filed past her, some pouring spiteful words upon her, but most ignoring her – just another civilian untouched by the majesty of the Rohan war machine. As the last filed out of the door, she began the longer, lonelier, walk home.


End file.
